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GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools
December 12, 2008
In Brooklyn, a school to close without graduating any students
Agnes Humphrey's building manager revising the school's billboard on Tuesday morning to advertise a meeting about the school's closure.
Since Joel Klein became chancellor in 2002, the Department of Education has closed 32 high schools. But its latest school closure is unlike any that have come before.
When all the other high schools closed, they did so in stages, so that students already enrolled could stay put until they graduated, rather than have to start at a new school in the middle of their four years. But when the Agnes Humphrey School for Leadership, a progressive school that is the only high school in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, closes its doors at the end of this year, it will be for good. And it will do so without ever having graduated a single student.
The unprecedented move is upsetting some parents and teachers, who worry that students will drop out rather than finding a new high school. City officials said they plan to talk to the students about their options, but four days after the school closure was announced, that hasn’t happened.
“The majority of the kids are saying, if this is going to happen, they’re not going to continue going to school,” Vickie LaSalle, whose daughter is a junior, said today. “Some of them are saying they’re going to get their GED. Some are saying they’re going to drop out.”
That’s what another mother predicted on Tuesday morning, just after the school’s closure was announced. She said she thought many of the students would drop out rather than commute to schools outside of Red Hook, a neighborhood that doesn’t have a subway station
The high school branch of Agnes Humphrey opened in 2006, adding onto an elementary and middle school that had already been open. The elementary school is also closing this spring, and the middle school will be phased out.
Advocates said that the department’s decision could hurt Agnes Humphrey parents and students.
“It’s a problem for the families,” said Andrea Feduzi, the acting executive director of Directions for Our Youth, which last year held a citywide dropout summit. “It’s a pity that these decisions are made without taking into account the best interests of the families and the community.”
A DOE spokeswoman, Melody Meyer, told me that closing the school is in fact in the community’s best interest, because it wasn’t moving its students toward graduation at an acceptable pace.
Just about 40 percent of ninth-graders last year earned 10 or more credits, the number considered necessary for students to be on pace to graduation, according to the school’s 2007-2008 progress report; just over 50 percent of tenth-graders earned that many credits. Because the high school has not yet generated a graduation rate, it did not receive a letter grade on its progress report. Students did outperform their peers at schools the DOE considers similar to Agnes Humphrey on math and science Regents exams, the report indicates.
School officials rarely allow students to transfer into a new high school during the middle of their four years. But Agnes Humphrey students will be encouraged to transfer, and an official at the DOE’s enrollment office will help each of the high school’s approximately 80 students find a new school, Meyer said.
“Not a lot of schools grant transfers, but this is not a lot of students, and this is a unique situation,” Meyer said.
So far, students haven’t learned when this process will begin, or how they will be assigned to schools for next year, LaSalle said.
For now, members of the school community must carry on with high school while dealing with the disruptive news they received this week.
“The students feel as though they have been trying so hard, and now they are just going to be sent away, without even getting the chance to try to graduate from a school that some of them have been in for almost 10 years,” a teacher wrote in an e-mail to GothamSchools on Tuesday.
LaSalle said that since receiving the news about her school on Monday night, her daughter has been stressed out and distracted from her schoolwork.
“Instead of thinking about a college she’s got to think about a high school,” LaSalle said.
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December 12th, 2008 8:24 pm
Who is helping the high school students find new high schools to transfer to? who will help them with the transfer process? since the middle school is phasing out, the 5th graders will also need to find a new school to attend. i hope that adequate resources will be provided to this school so that these students do not become a product of a broken system. there are too many places for these kids to slip through the cracks. i hope joel klein understands the inherent dangers in an immediate school closure rather than a phase-out.
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December 13th, 2008 10:55 am
with all due respect to the noodle heads at doe, what the heck will this accomplish except put another scalp in klein’s belt. has joel klein or bloomberg ever spent a week in the life of a red hook family? thats always their answer, well just send the kids miles away and that will solve everthing until they go to the hamptons so the kids can get jobs waiting on them.
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December 14th, 2008 1:22 pm
When is the New York State Department of Education, the Fed, The NYC City Council, and the state leguslature going to stop Bloomberg and Klein from this constant closing of “failing” schools ? Clearly, the closing of “failing” schools doesn’t really work, for the most part, because each and every year the NYCDOE closes even more schools. I mean, seriously, wouldn’t it be better to fix these schools instead of closing them ? However, since Klein and Bloomberg aren’t educators and since they haven’t really surrounded themselves within the NYCDOE with talented, gifted educators, they probably, as a group, don’t possess the intellect, the talent, and ingenuity to truly reform a school in lieu of closing it. Moreover, when one looks at the schools that Klein and Bloomberg have recently slated for closing, most of these schools are located within suffering communities and/or feature a student population that is overwhelmingly subjected to some of our society’s most pressing social ills and problems. For example, many of the schools that are going to be closed have highly transient student bodies and/or student bodies that are extremely poor and may suffer from the adverse effects of homelessness and NYC public housing. Thus, these schools, which definitely need to be fixed in lieu of an actual closing, need a full, comprehensive reform plan in which both the academics and the societal ills which are adversely affecting the students are addressed. Note that such a reform plan would involve not just the NYCDOE, but it would also involve other city agencies and offices, as well as various community groups and community service organizations such as The Children’s Aid Society and Good Shepherd Social Services Agency.
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December 15th, 2008 8:29 am
What is with the protectionism? If the school is a failed school, it’s a failed school. Bloomberg and Klein have faced enormous challenges in a system which up until recently enjoys failure and constantly props itself up against the backstop of “how could anyone else understand?” Why is there this obsession with perpetuating failure? The reason they close the schools is to begin to exert some control over the failures of the teachers and administrators. Face it, if you are a part of that school, then you’re a failure. These kids deserve better, they can’t wait while the school figures out a ‘comprehensive reform plan.’ It’s easier to close the school and fire the ‘noodle-heads’ who work within it and use tax dollars for schools and programs in which people actually create results. Do some research about how many schools have been opened up under bloomberg sometime.
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December 15th, 2008 1:48 pm
What does the DoE owe to Agnes Humphrey students? Certainly a better education than Agnes Humphrey has been providing. The quick characterization is that is failing school, given the appalling credit accumulation rates. No student deserves to go to a school that does not prepare its students to graduate on time, and the NYCDoE has the best of intentions in closing Agnes Humphrey.
The DoE erred terribly in not providing families with information on the transfer process at the time of the closure announcement. It must be the worst limbo for the 80 students. Going forward, the DoE should provide the 80 families with the most rigorous case management, and the best opportunities to attend high-quality schools. This means arranged visits to lots of schools throughout this year; meeting with each family at least two times (with aggressive outreach to families not responding); forcing high-performing schools to accept Agnes Humphrey students; and following-up with families in September to confirm regular school attendance and troubleshoot adjustment issues. Just imagine how great it would be if Agnes Humphrey transferred to Midwood High School, Murrow High School, Madison High School, Brooklyn School of Collaborative Studies, Fort Hamilton High School, John Dewey High School, etc.
The closure of Agnes Humphrey reminds me of a fantastic New Yorker article on the instability that befell students left in the lurch by the closure of a low-performing Denver high school. Many of the students profiled in the article got lost in the transition, eventually dropping out, and the Denver school officials explained the tragedy as the “collateral damage” of school improvement. With Denver’s Superintendent Michael Bennett being considered for the Education Secretary post, Elizabeth posted a link to the New Yorker article earlier on Friday.
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December 16th, 2008 2:31 am
Your ideas and recommendations are all wonderful, Eric . However, let’s get real ! Do you honestly think that the NYCDOE is going to really do anything real and concrette to help the students of Agnes Humphrey gain admissions to some of the better schools in the NYCDOE ? Me personally, I think not. Worse yet, I don’t think the NYCDOE is going to do anything at all for these students.
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December 16th, 2008 10:10 am
PS 27 has 75% of its students not reading at grade level. 67% of its students are not performing at grade level in math. Very few of the high school students are on track to graduate and the school is very caotic. Why should the DOE continue to throw money at a sinking ship.
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January 12th, 2009 3:38 pm
My 5 year son was suppose to attend PS 27 in September because the had to be placed in a CTT. When I looked at the schools report and also Red Hook was too out of the way. I refused to send him. He is attending another school where he is doing great. If the school can be turned around, that would be great.
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January 27th, 2009 9:14 pm
Im a junior at this high school and i was P.O when i found out. we (the students) was notified about this about 2 or 3 weeks before high school applications where supposed to be sent in, that was back in december. a week before the deadlines, they told us that we had to pick schools to transfer to. most of the students here including myself have been here since pre-k even middle school we are not ready to transfer into a new big high school when we were so used to attending a small school setting. also since ive been here i have seen a GREAT turn around in students behaviors. its not that bad as it used to be. Its january now and were not hearing much word of what to do next…
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February 1st, 2009 6:54 pm
I am a teacher at PS 27. I’m a Bank Street Graduate with 11 years of teaching experience and a second master’s degree in School Psychology. When I chose to work at PS 27 four years ago, it was because of the principal’s philosophy of “not giving up on any child.” Although I knew that this would be a challenging school in which to work (due to the myriad social/academic/economic/emotional needs of the children in this forgotten and isolated neighborhood of Red Hook,Brooklyn), I saw many exciting and innovative components embedded in the school culture. For example, we are an Expeditionary Learning/Outward Bound school in which children focus on specific topics of study/expeditions that involve field work and service learning. Teacher are trained and follow the tenets of the Responsive Classroom model. We are encouraged and paid for 4 hours of curriculum planning each month with our teams. We are organized into grade teams with a team leader and weekly meetings. We have an annual week-end retreat, with workshops and guest speakers to help enhance our teaching practices. We also have a select group of teachers who offer up their classrooms as exemplary models, allowing other teachers to observe and further hone their own skills. We work closely with the Aussies (a literacy consultant group), who have helped us to develop a literacy binder, complete with rubrics, packets, assessments for various genres in writing. Our school offers an all encompassing wrap-around support system for students, with after school programs, tutoring, extended day, and Good Shepherd services. Our school has been a rock in the Red Hook community and for the Red Hook Community for over 100 years. Over 25% of the students at the school are learning disabled. A good portion of our students are being raised by a single parent, an extended family member, or a foster parent. Our students are no strangers to violence, poverty, the experience of an incarcerated family member, drugs and alcohol abuse. The decision to close PS 27 was based solely on test scores, rather than looking at annual improvement. Knowing that a certain percentage of students are not on grade level, does little to shed light on the improvement students have made from one year to the next. And comparing our school’s test scores (with approximately 25% of our students qualifying for special education services) with other school’s doesn’t make sense.
What exactly is going to change as a result of PS 27 closing? Many of the current teachers will be rehired in whatever new school will be created. Our principal will remain there as the middle school is phased out. I expect that most of the children will return, because they are not likely to be accepted in to the mostly-white and middle class schools of just-on-the-other-side-of-the-BQE. Perhaps a young and inexperienced principal will be chosen who knows nothing of our students and whom our students mistrust. Or perhaps someone who’s been around the block and can guarantee test results will increase by next year (my, won’t that be a fun place in which to work or go to school). Or better yet, our school will close only to be replaced by a charter school with brand new teachers who have no experience in urban settings.
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February 16th, 2009 11:35 pm
I am also a teacher at this school and I see things quite differently than the previous letter writer. I decided to work at PS 27 because I believed that offerings such as Responsive Classroom and Expeditionary Learning were progressive and innovative programs that would be beneficial for any student coming from any environment. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for me to see that it matters little what great programs a school has to offer if that school suffers from poor leadership. Lack of leadership results in teachers, both new and experienced, who are not implementing these programs in their classrooms. It means having teachers who are not certified in the subject area for which they are being paid to teach (a recent search on the state’s education department website was quite enlightening to me). Lack of leadership means teachers become the police officers at the school as they are regularly forced to deal with injustices that range from being cursed at regularly to having to walk through hallways watching middle school students making out, fighting or simply cutting classes. These students usually behave in this manner with no regard for the consequences because there aren’t any consistent ones. The lack of discipline, and the de facto policy of coddling students instead of holding them to the kind of standards required of students at middle class schools is the soft racism of low expectations. The students are being taught that they can do whatever they want, anytime and anywhere, and I’ve heard many a staff member ignore or excuse this behavior because it is as they tell me, “part of their culture”.
Let’s stop blaming the neighborhood, the poverty, or the skin color of the students to excuse their limited progress while in attendance at this school. The school was in a perfect position as a longtime rock of the community to offer parents and caregivers more guidance through the daunting task of raising young people. Maybe by offering more parent workshops and home outreach. Many parents have told me that the school often isolated the community members, and sometimes imitated the negative qualities of the community instead of acting as a dependable role model.
I for one will certainly not be pleased if a charter school comes in and divides the neighborhood. Public schools should not become the least attractive choice for parents; but the leaders at the school for leadership had the opportunity to be the change that they wanted to see, and in my opinion they failed.
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February 17th, 2009 10:13 am
Failing schools in New York City are closed for one reason and one reason only: it makes for a good sound bite in the press:
“The Schools Chancellor and Mayor closed another failing school.”
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March 4th, 2009 6:21 pm
The decision to close this school is accurate. As a teacher in the building I realize and am constantly being reminded by union officials that Sara Barnes is psychotic and unfit to run a school. She is vendictive and spitefule and cares only for her own ego. Here we have a school that is closing and she keeps offering out the hope and promise that the high school will be given a reprive. She has sent altered transcripts to the superintendants office as evidence that her school should remain open. She refuses to help any of them in their search for new high schools.
Instead of investing money in workshops and staff development she should be investing in text books and library books for the high and middle school children.The students run completely wild in this school, constantly cursing at teachers and making lewd comments. Their reading and math scores are extremely low and the attitude of the administration is that they come from this environment and we should except who we are working with. They say if you don’t like it here maybe you should look to another school for your career.
I totally agree with this decision to close the school. It is about time some of these people running these school be stopped instead of using the schools as their personal piggy banks.
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March 6th, 2009 8:18 pm
I have previously published my comments on the closing of PS 27, and am writing again as I have a very different perspective on the role Sara Barnes has played since we were notified in December that our school is closing. Ms. Barnes has remained calm and professional in response to the news that PS 27 was to be closed next September. She continued to lead our school’s tradition of an annual retreat where the focus was on how to make this upcoming spring semester the best one for our students. Recently, Sara has begun meeting with each individual teacher to help support and transition them professionally for the next school year. In general, I find that her positive attitude and demeanor has helped to stabilize the school, in what could have otherwise been a chaotic time.
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March 7th, 2009 7:35 pm
Just a quick update on PS 27: Sara Barnes, principal, was removed from the school on 3/5/09. She is under investigation by the DOE Office of Special Investigations for a wide range of violations. Not sure if one can still defend her integrity or professionalism at this point. It sounds like she is in some serious trouble.
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May 9th, 2009 1:36 am
“Recently, Sara has begun meeting with each individual teacher to help support and transition them professionally for the next school year.”
Really. When the harsh public spotlight was not her, Barnes (and her APs) refused to provide support for teachers, particularly in terms of physical security. There were no deans, meaning that accountability for behavior both in and outside of the classroom– often behavior that would have been considered misdemeanors outside of a school’s walls– fell to the already overtaxed guidance staff. Barnes didn’t want to hear or even acknowledge bad news, because bad news means bad hype, and bad hype means accountability. Then again, based on recent events– the investigation into grade fixing– it looks like her spin machine caught up with her. Her heart was technically in the right place– putting a dent in the “schools-to-prison pipeline”, as she called it– but her approach was completely wrong.
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Mapping the Budget Cuts
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